Three Thirteen
by LoriHuCalmia
Summary: In light of some fake 3x13 spoilers, I decided to show you guys how I would do the episode. Set in L-verse, but not part of continuity. Not a crossover, everything is set in Lima and Emily Prentiss is in this as Lauren's mother only. Warning for violence
1. Pumped Up Kicks

_In light of some new season three, episode thirteen spoilers, I've decided to post this. (Yes, I know somebody else has already beaten me to the punch. Well, we're all allowed spoiler speculation, and mine has a far less ambiguous ending.) This is probably going to be three chapters to start with, and after the season, when I actually write the story, who knows?_

_For those of you unfamiliar with my L-series, Blaine was a sex slave the Andersons purchased and rented out to their friends. Pearl Rush is a character in an original work of mine I'm still trying to find a publisher for, and the woman who pushed to arrest the Andersons and the people who abused Blaine, and eventually adopted him. Emily Prentiss is a character in the show _Criminal Minds_, and she adopted Lauren Zizes after Lauren's father turned out to be a serial killer._

_Disclaimer: I don't own the show "Glee," nor the song "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People. I only own a tumblr account._

* * *

><p>Chapter I: Pumped Up Kicks<p>

_Robert's got a quick hand.  
>He'll look around the room; he won't tell you his plan.<br>He's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth he's a cowboy kid.  
>Yeah, he found a six shooter gun.<br>In his dad's closet hidden with a box of fun things, and I don't even know what.  
>But he's coming for you; yeah he's coming for you.<em>

Today was the day they were finally going to do it. Santana and Brittany linked pinkies and walked in through the double doors, Santana leading the way, with heads held almost brazenly up before slushies were dumped in Santana's face.

"Oh, almost got a two-for-one," Rick-the-stick Nelson laughed at the girls.

Brittany led Santana into the bathroom as the girl cursed up a Spanish storm. Once they were inside, she broke down.

"This was supposed to be a special day!" she yelled through teary eyes.

As it turned out, it was still going to be.

* * *

><p><em>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.<br>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet.  
>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.<br>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet._

"Okay, guys!" Will called, holding up some new music. "First, I want to congratulate you all on your Michael Jackson tribute last night. We raised half of our total airfare with one concert. Give yourselves a hand!" Everyone clapped. "Now, that tribute was successful because Michael Jackson is an international phenomenon. But it was also successful because you guys are great. So, for this week, I want you guys to throw an even more successful concert using a less well-known artist group—Foster the People," he started to hand out the music to everyone, including Brittany and her newly cleaned girlfriend.

Rachel immediately raised her hand. "Mr. Schue, I think you got it in the wrong key."

"Rachel, we've been over this," Will looked at Rory. "For this, I would like Blaine to sing lead."

Everybody, save Rachel, turned and clapped for the former Warbler.

"Blaine, I understand that you've been having some difficulties at home, and I know that expressing yourself through song is one of the things you do best," Will nodded. "You deserve it."

"And I don't?" Rachel was furious.

"You get plenty of solos, Rachel," Kurt reminded her.

Rachel stomped out of the room in a huff.

Blaine looked incredibly guilty as he started to follow her.

"Don't," Kurt would have tugged on Blaine's sleeve if he weren't afraid of stretching out the Chanel fabric. "She's just going to slap you and keep storming off."

"Maybe, but at least I'd feel like I did something," Blaine said.

Kurt considered not following, but once he realize that Blaine's Chanel jacket was an imitation, he decided he could protect his boyfriend's incredible face by tugging on the fake designer jacket. "Excuse me," he said.

Will sighed. "How about I take the solo for now, and you guys can practice," he suggested.

New Directions stood and started to sing. They were too loud to hear what was going on at the other end of the school.

* * *

><p><em>Daddy works a long day.<br>He'll be coming home late, he's coming home late.  
>And he's bringing me a surprise.<br>'Cause dinner's in the kitchen and it's packed in ice.  
>I've waited for a long time.<br>Yeah the sleight of my hand is now a quick-pull trigger,  
>I reason with my cigarette,<br>And say your hair's on fire, you must have lost your wits, yeah._

Jacob Ben Israel didn't know if the jocks could feel the extra weight in his backpack as they bumped him into lockers and other students. His grandfather's old service pistol was nestled safely between books he hadn't read and homework he didn't do. He wasn't going to kid himself; there was no way they were going to let him go back to school after that day, so it wasn't as if grades really mattered at this point.

The only thing that mattered was getting **her** attention.

Jacob dumped the contents of his backpack in his locker and felt around for the gun. Once his hand had wrapped around the cold metal, he raised it high in the air and fired a warning shot. One of the lights exploded above his head and students screamed and ducked. "Get out of my way!" he yelled.

This time, when he walked down the hall, no jocks bumped him. He shot them all anyway.

* * *

><p><em>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.<br>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my bullet.  
><em>_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.  
>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet.<em>

"Blaine! Blaine!" Kurt called, running down the hall after his boyfriend. When his fingers brushed against Blaine's collar, he heard a sharp crack, like the time Finn tried to skateboard off the roof and broke his ankle, and some screams. Blaine froze, and Kurt bumped into him.

"Did you hear that?" Blaine asked.

Kurt nodded. "What **was** it?" he wondered aloud.

Blaine didn't answer. He started to turn and push Kurt back. Somewhere nearby, the sounds of Rachel's shuffling got faster before stopping completely. Kurt and Blaine looked at each other in horror before running after her. When they turned the corner, they found out why she had stopped.

A few feet away, Jacob Ben Israel had a gun pointed directly at her chest.

For a few seconds, nobody dared to move. Then Blaine began to cautiously edge toward the armed boy. "Jacob," he said, arms held up in the air, "what are you doing?"

"Get back **now**!" Jacob roared. The front of his shirt was covered with blood and he looked absolutely deranged.

"Oh, God, Jacob, who did you kill?" Rachel's voice was high and hysterical.

Jacob's face twisted into a demented smile that was somehow more terrifying that his previously blank expression. "I killed those damn jocks who hurt you, Rachel," he answered with the tone Kurt and Rachel recognized as his smitten one. "All except one," his voice hardened as he spat out, "Finn Hudson!"

"No!" Kurt and Rachel said at once, lowering their arms and walking toward him purposefully. Blaine knew what Jacob was going to do the second before he did it, as the tendon in the shooter's wrist moved, and ran forward to push Kurt out of the way just as Jacob pointed the gun at him and fired. The shot hit Blaine instead. The former Warbler crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach.

Rachel screamed as Kurt started to drag his boyfriend away.

Jacob turned the gun on her. "Shut up!" he yelled hysterically.

Rachel's eyes blazed in fury. Something inside her snapped. "NO!" she yelled.

New Directions kept whistling.

* * *

><p><em>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.<br>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet._

"Two cream, no sugar, for you" Pearl said, setting down a cup for Emily Prentiss. "And three sugars, one cream for me."

"I swear, Pearl, you drink more sugar than Reid."

"Hey, we don't talk about how I'm going to develop Type-2 Diabetes in this house."

Prentiss snorted and took a sip of her coffee. "Mm, thanks," she said with true gratitude. "I've forgotten how good coffee is."

"Yeah, that crap they have down at the BAU makes my cooking taste gourmet."

Prentiss nearly spit out her coffee. "BAU coffee would make gasoline taste delicious, but Pearl, flames taste like flames no matter what you compare them to, and don't even bother giving me doe eyes, you know it's true."

Pearl pouted and flashed a thoroughly unimpressed Prentiss the doe eyes anyway, and that was when it happened. "Did you hear that?" Pearl inquired. "I could've sworn I heard screaming."

The two women sat there, staring at each other for a second, before Prentiss pulled out her phone and followed Pearl on her way to the latter's car.

_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.  
>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet.<em>

Pearl switched off the radio. This could not be happening. Not in a small town like Lima, where the biggest thing to happen in years was a-

"Oh, god," Prentiss gasped in horror as she showed her friend Jacob Ben Israel's blog of a school shooting. The bullet entering Blaine's appendix was being streamed live.

_All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, outrun my gun.  
>All the other kids with the pumped up kicks, you'd better run, better run, faster than my bullet.<em>

* * *

><p><em>In case you're wondering where I got my spoilers, it's on santana - rachel . tumblr . com  post / 14713767075. Just remove the spaces. In case you're wondering when I'm going to stop making jokes about Pearl being a terrible cook, the answer is never. Good luck and happy nightmares!_


	2. Paper Planes

_Well, here it is, the third chapter, fulfilling the rest of the "prophecy." The next chapter will have the fallout, and believe me, there will be a lot of them._

_Disclaimer: I don't own "Paper Planes," by M.I.A._

* * *

><p>Chapter II: Paper Planes<p>

_I fly like paper, get high like planes. If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name.  
>If you come around here, I make them all day. I'll get one down in a second if you wait.<em>

Blaine knew he had endured a lot already, but lately, Ms. Rush had turned him into a pampered sonuvabitch to some degree, and for the tenth of a second between when he saw Jacob's arm get ready to point his gun at Kurt and the actual firing at Kurt, he debated whether he could endure the pain of getting shot. Then again, he had never felt the pain of getting shot; maybe the movies exaggerated it? He tugged Kurt to the floor and almost immediately joined him as he choked, tried to pull back and a blinding wave of pain flickered hard across his stomach.

Maybe this would all make sense to him later, but somewhere past the screaming unnatural pain in his body, he saw the boys' bathroom door and scrambled up, tugging Kurt in the general direction of the door to safety. He tried to reach for Rachel too, but at that point the hand not clutching Kurt refused to budge from the hole that was seeping warm, thick liquid, and Kurt was holding him up, and he couldn't actually remember who Rachel was or who he was or where he was going.

Wait, someone was speaking.

_I fly like paper, get high like planes. If you catch me at the border, I got visas in my name.  
>If you come around here, I make them all day. I'll get one down in a second if you wait.<em>

"Oh, oh, oh, oh," Kurt couldn't stop speaking as he took advantage of the fact that Jacob was distracted giving Rachel a speech to drag Blaine into the bathroom nearby and locked it. He knew it was callous of him to leave her there, but Jacob loved her, didn't he? He wasn't likely to hurt her. Blaine looked like he was about to die, and Kurt knew where his loyalties lied, as difficult as it was to think about leaving a dear friend behind.

"Blaine, talk to me," he begged.

Blaine looked at him with puffy, red eyes. "Kurt," he groaned. There was a spot the size of an apple on his jacket, and the sight of it made Kurt want to cry. His eyes started to flutter shut, and panic seized Kurt's chest as he slapped Blaine across the face, waking the boy up.

"Blaine, you have to stay awake, okay?" Kurt muttered. "You can't go to sleep. If you go to sleep, you won't wake up," he babbled as he unzipped Blaine's jacket. Blaine's shirt sported a bloodstain the size of a cannonball. "Oh, oh, oh, oh," his hands flew toward his mouth in horror until he saw that they, too, were covered in blood. He needed to think clearly, but his head throbbed. He touched the back to find a bump from when Blaine tugged him into the lockers and ignored it; Blaine was more important.

"But Kurt, it hurts," Blaine hissed.

"I know," Kurt wanted to cry. "Blaine, I have to take this off, keep you from bleeding so much."

_Sometimes I think sitting on trains. Every stop I get to, I'm clocking that game.  
>Everyone's a winner, we're making our fame. Bona fide hustler, making my name.<em>

Blaine gritted his teeth when Kurt made him take off his jacket and Kurt's fingers kept brushing around the weeping wound, sending sharp jags of all the way up through his shoulder. He let Kurt tie his jacket around his middle to stem the blood flow, even if the action shot sharp jags of pain across every goddamned nerve in his body. He stifled a gasp and squeezed Kurt's hand, grip shaky until it eased into a nasty throbbing sensation and he looked dully at the slowed darkening of his shirt. The sight made him woozy and he groaned again, pressing one hand against his eyes.

"Shit!" Kurt cursed, a rare occurrence, so Blaine opened his eyes again and stared at Kurt's arm. For a second, he thought that Kurt's arm was drooling blood. Then he realized it was his own blood and he slumped against the floor.

_Sometimes I think sitting on trains. Every stop I get to, I'm clocking that game.  
>Everyone's a winner, we're making our fame. Bona fide hustler, making my name.<em>

"Blaine, you have to stay awake!" Kurt slapped his cheek until Blaine's eyes slowly opened.

"It's hard, Kurt," he slurred. Kurt noted how breathless he sounded.

"Sing with me," Kurt said quickly, thinking of the first thing he could as he locked the door.

"What do you want to sing, Kurt?" Blaine slurred.

Kurt leaned down and sobbed. "Anything to keep you with me."

_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.  
><em>_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money._

* * *

><p><em>All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take all your money.<br>All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take all your money._

Will sighed. "Well, I guess they still haven't convinced Rachel to come back, so I guess I'll hand out our second piece," he said. "Artie, do you mind taking lead with Mercedes?"

_Pirate skulls and bones, sticks and stones and weed and bombs,  
>Running when we hit them, lethal poison for the system.<em>

Artie and Mercedes high-fived each other before launching into song.

_Pirate skulls and bones, sticks and stones and weed and bombs,  
>Running when we hit them, lethal poison for the system.<em>

* * *

><p><em>No one in the corner has swagger like us. Hit me on my Burner prepaid wireless.<br>We pack and deliver like UPS trucks, already in hell just pumping that gas._

Lauren licked her fingers clean of her Christmas chocolate. She was on her way to the boys' bathroom when she saw the blood-spattered Jacob Ben Israel yelling and holding a gun to a very terrified and alone Rachel. Feeling sick, she pulled out her phone, not even worried about getting chocolate on the buttons of the expensive gadget, and texted, "Jacob Ben Israel is shooting up the school." That would get her mother's attention.

"LAUREN!"

It certainly got Rachel's. Lauren looked up, ready to deliver a cutting remark, but found Jacob's gun pointed at her face instead. *******

_No one in the corner has swagger like us. Hit me on my Burner prepaid wireless.  
>We pack and deliver like UPS trucks, already in hell just pumping that gas.<em>

Prentiss rubbed soothing circles on Pearl's back as the younger woman dry-heaved out her window. "I'm sorry," she said.

_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.  
>All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.<em>

Pearl shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Blaine will be okay. He always is." She was crying, not believing her own words. Then she wiped her eyes and mouth. "Come on," she said, "we should keep going."

"I already called the Lima Police," Prentiss said. "They won't let us in; we're parents."

_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.  
>All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.<em>

"We're FBI," Pearl said determinedly. "Or at least, I am," she said darkly, patting her pocket holster. "Do you have your gun?"

Prentiss lifted up one pant leg to reveal her ankle holster. "Do you even need to ask?"

_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.  
>All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.<em>

* * *

><p>Lauren couldn't believe this was how she was going to die. She had always envisioned a heart attack, or perhaps fighting off two hundred wrestlers all at once.<p>

"Rachel, shut up!" Jacob said the words Lauren had wanted to on more than one occasion. "Your repeated babbling is getting on my nerves."

"You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you," Rachel muttered.

And then Jacob turned the gun toward her and fired.

_MIA, third-world democracy. Yeah, I got more records than the KGB, so, uh, no funny business.  
>Some, some, some, I, some I murder. Some I some I let go.<br>Some, some, some, I, some I murder. Some I some I let go._

* * *

><p><em>All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money.<em>

Naturally, once they got to the school, the police tried to stop them from going any further. Pearl flashed her FBI badge in their faces, and they let her through.

"She's with me," Pearl said, gesturing to Prentiss.

The two women walked in past the halls and, other than a finger-mouth shushing gesture, they ignored the students weeping over the fallen jocks. Then they heard the bang and raced down the hall.

_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money._

"Bang, head shot," Jacob laughed.

"Jacob, put down the gun," Pearl said, raising her gun as Prentiss led a hysterical Lauren away. The poor girl was going to have nightmarish flashbacks to her father's death for weeks.

"No!" Jacob pointed his gun at her, and saw the barrel of her gun on him. Something changed in his expression, and Pearl noticed.

_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money._

"Jacob, don't," she started, but it was too late. Jacob Ben Israel put the barrel of his gun in his mouth and fired.

_All I want to do is (bang, bang, bang, bang) and (ka-ching) and take your money._

* * *

><p><em>There's a school shooting, check. JBI is the shooter, check. Blaine and Rachel are shot, check. A major character dies, check. "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, check. "Paper Planes" by M.I.A., check. Next time, we get to the fallout of all of this.<em>


	3. Cold as You

_Okay, you guys, the last chapter and the last part of the episode I made up. Also, I know that in the now debunked spoilers, it says the Taylor Swift song sung is "Haunted," but I already used that as the title in another story, so I'm using "Cold as You" instead._

_Ugh, I'm aware that Glee would NEVER do anything this serious. But when I read the fake spoilers, I knew that I really wanted to see this, and since I wasn't likely to, I simply had to do it myself._

_Disclaimer: I don't own the song "Cold as You" by Taylor Swift. And I don't own _Criminal Minds _episode 3.16, "Elephant's Memory," from which the quote at the end is taken._

* * *

><p>Chapter III: Cold As You<p>

_You have a way of coming easily to me.  
>And when you take, you take the very best of me.<br>So I start a fight 'cause I need to feel something.  
>And you do what you want 'cause I'm not what you wanted.<em>

"Let's sing 'Cold As You,'" Kurt whispered desperately. "Come on, Blaine, you know the words!"

Pearl stared at Jacob's body for a few seconds, trying to remind herself that she was in a school full of children and the sight of all that blood pooling in Jacob's body was not hers to drink without being discovered. She carefully stepped over the body and walked to the door of the boys' bathroom, under which a smear of blood disappeared. Carefully opening the door, she called out, "Is anyone there?"

"Pearl!" Kurt's cry made her fling the door open. She let out a scream when she saw her son.

_Oh what a shame, what a rainy ending given to a perfect day.  
>Just walk away, no use defending words that you will never say.<br>And now that I'm sitting here, thinking it through, I've never been anywhere cold as you._

"Blaine, sweetie, can you look at me?" she said, shaking him as gently as she could.

Blaine's eyes opened just a crack and he relaxed. "Mother," he said.

"Pearl," Prentiss' voice drifted in from outside, "the girl's still alive."

"Gabrielle Giffords was," Pearl replied offhandedly. "Call an ambulance!" she yelled. She turned back to Blaine. "You have to stay awake, honey, you have to stay awake."

* * *

><p><em>You put up walls and paint them all a shade of grey.<br>And I stood there loving you and wished them all away.  
>And you come away with a great little story<br>Of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you._

Rachel spent three hours in surgery. The doctors cut off the top of her skull so her injured brain would have space to swell.

"The bullet went through," said Dr. Fawhinki. "I have full confidence that she will survive. The brain is a very resilient thing."

* * *

><p><em>Oh what a shame, what a rainy ending given to a perfect day.<br>__Just walk away, no use defending words that you will never say.  
><em>_And now that I'm sitting here, thinking it through, I've never been anywhere cold as you._

Blaine spent two hours in surgery. The doctors sewed up the hole and repaired the torn intestinal tract. But removing the bullet would likely nick an artery.

"The bullet will not cause any long-term damage," said Ellen. "I'm more afraid of the sepsis that's likely to occur within the next day or so. We've put him in a coma so he can heal faster but, well, I'm afraid the prognosis is not very good."

* * *

><p><em>You never did give a damn thing, honey, but I cried, cried for you.<em>

Prentiss and Lauren were waiting in the hallway with a basket of care items.

"Thanks, girls," Pearl's face, wrinkled with worry, relaxed slightly. "You really shouldn't have," she added. "I know you have your own problems to work through."

Prentiss didn't respond to that, instead saying, "I've asked Hotch to send a couple people down and try to comfort the kids."

"It won't help," Pearl said cynically. "They can't make the kids un-see what they saw."

"Why don't people see this stuff coming?" Lauren cried, upset.

Pearl shrugged, putting the basket under her arm. "People don't want to think that their own children could ever do something like this. They spend every waking moment trying to make sure their children never end up like Blaine or Rachel or Rick, and but they never try to make sure their children never end up like Jacob."

_And I know you wouldn't have told nobody if I died, died for you. Died for you._

Lauren snorted. "It's stupid," she declared as the three walked to a hospital balcony.

"Yes, I suppose," Pearl picked idly at the plastic covering of her basket. "I felt sorry for Owen, you know," she said almost casually. "I supported Reid, I went to visit him, I made sure he was transferred to a federal prison, I took Jordan to see him." She put the basket on the ledge. "I wonder how sympathetic I would've been if Blaine had been one of the footballers by the river."

"You would've killed Owen yourself," Prentiss concluded correctly.

Pearl nodded thoughtfully before pulling herself away from the ledge. "And the stupid thing is, I still feel kind of sorry for Owen, and I'm not mad at you two for feeling sorry for Jacob."

Lauren shrugged. "He was bullied," she said. "I know what that's like. I just never let it get to me."

Pearl turned to the girl and smiled. "I'm so glad you're letting people in."

Lauren turned and smiled at her mother before turning back to Pearl. "Don't get used to it," she said. "My therapist says that once an egg's been hit, it cracks and all the soft stuff leaks out, but once I heal, I'll be as hard as ever."

"Actually, you would be a carrot," Pearl chuckled softly at Lauren's expression. "There's an old wives' tale," she explained, "that says everyone on Earth is a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean, but you never know what anyone is until they're in hot water."

"What's the difference?" Lauren asked.

"Jacob is an egg; when an egg is boiled, it becomes harder, and Jacob became hard enough to go on a shooting spree. Lauren, you're a carrot; when a carrot is boiled, it grows softer."

There was a pause while Lauren digested this information until it was broken by Prentiss. "So, what's a coffee bean?"

_Oh what a shame, what a rainy ending given to a perfect day  
>Every smile you fake is so condescending, counting all the scars you made<br>And now that I'm sitting here thinking it through, I've never been anywhere cold as you_

Pearl's smile fell. "Coffee beans are the worst," she said. "When coffee beans are in hot water, they make a delicious drink. They don't change themselves, they change the world around them. But it takes a lot of coffee beans together in order to do that."

Lauren looked down. "I want to be a coffee bean," she said, "like Mom."

Prentiss blushed, and Pearl's smile grew wider. "Well, then," she clapped her hands together, "we should go down to the press conference," she said. "Can't have Scott and John hogging all the camera time," she said, leading them down.

Immediately, when the three women went down, the cameras pointed toward them.

Lauren cleared her throat. "Earlier today, I saw one of my classmates shoot one of my friends, and then shoot himself. It was one of the most terrifying things I'd ever seen, and not just because it reminded me of my father's death. It was because at one point, I was taught to have as little regard for human life as the shooter did, and it's scary for me to think that I could've been him if my mother hadn't come in and saved me from that life and taught me right," she turned to smile at her mom.

The cameras turned to Prentiss, who blushed. "I've always tried to foster a sense of non-judgmental belonging in my house. I would just like to say that this is a difficult time for everyone, and I for one am going to spend it with family. What this community needs right now is not to point fingers, but to extend helping hands. What's done is done, and we can't move forward if we keep glaring at the past."

"Easy for you to say!" yelled a woman in the audience. "You didn't lose a son today!"

"Mrs. Nelson," Pearl walked to the front of the cameras. "I understand where you're coming from. My son is currently in a medically-induced coma on life support. He has about a 30% chance of ever waking up, and even then the rest of his life will be plagued with health problems. But there's nothing that Jacob could do, even if he were alive, that would make Blaine's health better."

"Sue the Ben Israel family for your medical bills!" John yelled.

Pearl sighed. "This isn't any one person's fault!" she snapped. "We are all to blame."

"Oh, sure, blame the victims!" Scott hollered.

"Jacob was a victim too," Pearl replied directly into a microphone. "He was a victim of athletes who looked down on him for not being able to participate and bullied him daily."

"How dare you!" Mr. Nelson was incensed.

"He was a victim of teachers who did nothing to stop the harassment they saw."

"You're blaming the teachers?" Beiste was pissed.

"He was a victim of loneliness around people who should have accepted him, could've taken time out of their not-so-busy days to talk to him, but never did, because parents like me try too hard to instill a sense of self-worth into our kids, and inadvertently instill a sense of superiority," this statement made everyone shut up. "The Glee Club that my son joined was all about embracing those who were not popular, who were considered 'losers,' and I encouraged him to ignore people, including Jacob, thinking that the rest of them were all arrogant bullies. Well, that was my fault, encouraging my son to not reach out. It's my son's fault that he didn't reach out. And likewise, every parent here and every child still here and those who will never be here again are at fault. But we are also victims, victims of the loss of our community. However, while we are victims, we don't have to be victimized again. We can rebuild a faulty community into one where everyone is treated with respect, athlete, popular, or singer. Thank you."

"Excuse me," Ellen tapped Pearl on the shoulder, "your son's awake."

"One more thing," Pearl said, buying coffee off a vendor. "Here," she handed it to Mrs. Ben Israel.

* * *

><p><strong>Morgan: <strong>You know, we forget half of what they teach us in school, but when it comes to the torment and the people who inflicted it we've all got an elephant's memory.

* * *

><p><em>The carrot, egg, coffee bean analogy was one of the most awesome metaphors I'd ever heard, so I put it in here.<em>

_When I was in middle school, this guy asked me to switch backpacks because the security guard always searched his (this was about a month after he killed a hamster during school) and I agreed. I thought it felt heavy and, as soon as we got inside, we switched back inside the library. He said, "I'll remember you." He was caught with a gun and a list of people, luckily before he could hurt anyone. But still, it was so scary._

_Sorry if the ending is abrupt. I know this is a very incomplete description of what a town usually goes through after a shooting, but while I came close, I never experienced a shooting before, and it didn't seem right to guess blindly about a subject as sensitive as this. I did zero research, so I can't even try._

_Thanks for reading!_


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